A civil wrong or wrong is a cause of action under civil law. Types of civil wrong include:
Something that amounts to a civil wrong is said to be wrongful. A wrong involves the violation of a right because wrong and right are complementary terms.[2] An 1860 legal ruling stated that: "It is essential to an action in tort that the act complained of should under the circumstances be legally wrongful as regards the party complaining; that is, it must prejudicially affect him in some legal right".[3]
The law that relates to civil wrongs is part of the branch of the law that is called the civil law.[4] A civil wrong is capable of being followed by what are called civil proceedings.[5] It is a misnomer to describe a civil wrong as a "civil offence".[6] The law of England recognised the concept of a "wrong" before it recognised the distinction between civil wrongs and crimes (which distinction was developed during the thirteenth century).[7]
See also
References
- ^ Glanville Williams. Learning the Law. Eleventh Edition. Stevens. 1982. pp. 9-10
- ^ Clerk and Lindsell on Torts. Sixteenth Edition. 1989. Sweet and Maxwell. paragraph 1-14 at page 12.
- ^ Rogers v Rajendro Dutt (1860) 13 Moo P C 209, 9 WR 149, 15 ER 78, quoted in House of Lords, Watkins (Respondent) v. Home Office (Appellants) and others, [2006] UKHL 17
- ^ Glanville Williams. Learning the Law. Eleventh Edition. Stevens. 1982. p. 2
- ^ Glanville Williams. Learning the Law. Eleventh Edition. Stevens. 1982. p. 3
- ^ Williams, G.L., (1982). "Learning the Law", 11th Ed., London : Stevens, ISBN 0-420-46290-2, p. 4
- ^ O. Hood Phillips, A First Book of English Law, Sweet and Maxwell, 4th ed., 1960, pp. 207, 208, 213